The field season has started again, which gives me a great opportunity to take pictures of Finnish wildlife. We only have three species of snake here (one of which actually only lives on the Åland Islands), which makes it easy to cover "the snakes of Finland" in a single post. So here are some snakes from the Frozen North!

Here is one of the two grass snakes (Natrix natrix) living under/around our lab/office. The picture is from last summer; we saw them again last week sunning themselves in the field with three new little ones! Yay!



I ran into this common viper (Vipera berus berus) sunning itself at one of our collection sites. I've been told (and read) that their venom can be quite painful but is rarely lethal (barring allergy). Last year I saw a black individual somewhere near the field station, but I didn't get a picture....hopefully he/she will show up again.